This year hasn’t been such a big sewing year for me, largely because I have enough clothes. But last autumn I did set out to make another pair of jeans, since my first pair was so successful and became my favourites.

This time I ventured into non-indigo territory. I actually bought undyed fabric and dyed it myself in the bathtub, since I couldn’t find the right kind of denim in the grey colour I wanted. The colour turned out beautiful, albeit a little lighter than I had intended. The result was that, when I wore these jeans through the fall and winter, I felt mediocre about them. Ultimately I think they are too light a colour for my cold-weather preferences.

However, once the weather got warm, I rolled up the cuffs and fell in love with the jeans. They have less stretch than my other pair, which makes them a little less smooth-fitting, and while that annoyed me during the winter (it feels sloppy when combined with the bulkiness of warm clothes) I think it is just fine in summer.

Unlike my previous jeans, I put rivets on these, which involves pounding them in with a hammer, using the back of an iron skillet as a base. The scary part (if the hammer and skillet weren’t) is that you have to punch a hole in the fabric with an awl to insert the rivet!

I also made the t-shirt. It’s from the free Plantain Tee pattern by Deer and Doe, but modified in shape. I’ve made this before, several times, and each time I make some small tweak in search of the perfect fit. Someday I will tweak it just right. In the meantime, it is doing me fine service.